In computer animation, individual particles move and evolve on a computer screen in a process called a “particle simulation”. Particle simulations are primarily used by animators to generate fuzzy or otherwise hard to render visual effects like water falling, smoke, fireworks, etc. Unfortunately, artists often lack direct control over all of the individual particles' movements. Although the visual effects of thousands or millions of particles moving on a screen can be visually pleasing, individual particles can be generated in the wrong place or time and may move or evolve in unpredictable or undesirable ways. Although the artist may wish to make changes to correct these problems, they typically have only limited tools at their disposal. This often forces the artist to tweak the conditions slightly, and then re-run the full simulation, hoping for a better result.
It would instead be desirable to provide a system that permits artists to manipulate particle animations using commonly existing 3D editing tools, such as mesh editing tools. This is because such commonly existing 3D mesh editing tools generally permit the artist to easily select, delete or copy individual elements, transform them in space, smooth or sculpt them, etc.